Dust Particled Memories
by fowl68
Summary: You breathed in the salty air of the sea and you watched the light play on the waves, counting clouds and telling stories.You wanted it to last forever. RichterAster


**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything!

**Author's Note: ** Felt the sudden urge to write Richter and Aster again. Really, I love them and I wish their relationship had gotten some more attention and depth in the game. The style of this I got from the fic Quintessence by twentyfiveraven, which is a Death Note fic for anyone who's interested.

-/-/-/-

_"Love is not a small thing. It can change a life."  
><em>_"It can change the world."_

_-Michael and Glorianna** (Belladonna)**_

-/-/-/-

_He looked like…_

When you were nine and he was seven and the sunshine streaming through the windows had dust particles floating through the air—how long since you had seen sunlight, the sky?—while everyone kept inside as much as possible. You were sent to pick up some papers from the Director's office.

He was the first thing to catch your attention, curled in the sunlit corner as he was, books surrounding him. He was a wash of pale skin and hair with eyes bright like the sun streaming through the trees you remembered from back home.

He was a friendly smile and a small-handed wave; he was sunlight and dust particles and you had never seen an angel, but you think that he must be one.

_He smelled like…_

When you were ten and a quarter and he was two weeks from eight. He had stolen you away again—he did that a lot, you remember, and you can't remember ever ever regretting it—and you were going through Sybak's market. You ate fruits on the sea wall and he had blackberry juices on his chin and watermelon drying stickily to your fingers.

You shared a water bottle and you played paper-rock-scissors to choose who had to go refill it. He won that time.

You breathed in the salty air of the sea and you watched the light play on the waves, counting clouds and telling stories.

You wanted it to last forever.

_He sounded like…_

When you were twelve and he was ten and three-quarters and you were sharing a room—and a bed because the room was really small—and he'd shaken you awake in the middle of the night.

His voice was quiet and familiar, like the waves of the ocean and the crickets that you could always hear at night. He beckoned you out of bed, leading you downstairs and into the kitchen. The only things you remember are the humming of the fridge and his happy sounds as he found leftover pie for the both of you.

_He felt like…_

When you were twelve days thirteen and he was eleven and a half and he's warm against you, though your back was cold because he liked to steal blankets and it's winter outside of their bed where they kept each other warm.

He had goosebumps from the cold and his blonde hair was tickling your chin. You could feel the flannel pajama bottoms that made your legs itch and the cotton T-shirt is worn and soft against you.

Those nights, there were no nightmares.

_He tasted like…_

When you were turning fifteen and he was thirteen and his lips were suddenly against yours, very warm and as soft as his T-shirt. He was all too close and he tasted like watermelons and blackberries and stale coffee and you could see the pale freckles dotting his nose and count his eyelashes—were they coal-covered blonde or gold-dusted black?—and suddenly, nothing mattered but this, right here.

_He loved like…_

When you were sixteen going on seventeen and he was fourteen and he would brush a kiss against your throat to wake you up. When he would nudge you from your concentration, a fresh mug of coffee in hand.

When he sat awake with you one the roof, leaning against your shoulder as you murmured stories from Ozette to him. When he shuffled from the shower, towel tied low on his hips and he would brush his hair irritably away from his face. When he gave you half his tuna sandwich every day for a week because you had been obsessing too much on a project to worry about something like lunch.

Those days are dust-particled memories fading in the picture frames of your mind.

_He hurt like…_

When you were seventeen and he was fifteen and the hateful words were spat, not at you anymore, but at him because he was friends with you.

When you were nineteen-soon-to-be-twenty and he was eighteen and his eyes were fever-bright with ideas and the memory of his sweetheart smile _aches_.

When you were almost no longer twenty-one and he was two weeks from twenty and he wasn't moving or smiling or _anything_ and it's all building up and you want to scream and rage and cry, but most of all, you want him _back_.

-/-/-/-

_"There is no greater sorrow than thinking back upon a happy time in misery and this your teacher knows."_

_-Dante Alighieri** (Divine Comedy: Canto 5)**_


End file.
